为了支撑自己和弟弟们的生活，克里斯开始承担生活的重担。

　　One day, when Chris was fourteen, Jack Langan got rough with the boys, as he sometimes did, and Christ knocked him out cold在克里斯14岁那一年的一天，杰克.兰根又像以往一样，粗暴地折磨这些孩子。后来，克里斯把父亲打到冰天雪地里。

　　Jack left, never to return.

　　杰克从此离开了，再也没有回来。

　　Upon graduation from high school, Chris was offered two full scholarships,中学毕业之后，克里斯申请到了两所高校的全额奖学金，One to Reed College in Oregon and the other to the University of Chicago.

　　一所是俄勒冈州的里德学院，另外一所是芝加哥大学。

　　He chose Reed. "It was a huge mistake," Christ recalls. "I had a real case of culture shock.

　　他最终选择了里德学院。“这是一个严重的错误，”克里斯回忆说，“这里颠覆了我以前所受的教育。

　　I was a crew-cut kid who had been working as a ranch hand in the summers in Montana,夏天，我曾在蒙大纳的农场务工，我是一个剃着平头的男孩，and there I was, with the whole bunch of long-haired city kids, most of them from New York.

　　而我周围的男孩全留着长发，他们都是城里人，很多人来自纽约。

　　And these kids had a whole different style than I was used to. I couldn't get a word in edgewise in class.

　　这些孩子和我以前见到的类型完全不同。班里没有我插嘴的份。

　　They were very inquisitive. Asking questions all the time.

　　他们都对我非常好奇，没完没了地问这问那。

　　I was crammed into a dorm room.

　　我和其他三个人挤在一间宿舍，

　　There were four of us, and the other three guys had a whole different lifestyle.

　　其他三个完全是另外一种类型，

　　They were smoking pot. They would bring their girlfriends into the room.

　　他们吸毒，把他们的女朋友带进宿舍。

　　I had never smoked pot before. So I basically took the hiding in the library."我是从来没有吸过毒品，我躲避他们的最好办法，就是跑到图书馆去。”

　　He continued: "Then I lost that scholarship....

　　他接着说道：“随后我失去了奖学金，这不是我的过错......

　　My mother was supposed to fill out a parents' financial statement for the renewal of that scholarship.

　　为了继续申请奖学金，我的母亲本应该填写一份父母经济状况的说明。

　　She neglected to do so. She was confused by the requirements or whatever.

　　但她却忽略了这件事，她已经被生计弄得晕头转向。

　　At some point, it came to my attention that my scholarship had not been renewed.

　　我在忽然之间接到我没能继续申请到奖学金的通知。

　　So I went to the office to ask why, and they told me, Well, no one sent us the financial statement,所以我跑到学校办公室问这到底是为什么，然后他们就告诉我说，真遗憾，没人把你父母经济状况的说明送到我们这来，and we allocated all the scholar money and it's all gone, so I'm afraid that you don't have a scholarship here anymore.

　　我们已经分配了所有的奖学资金，所有的资金都用完了，所以非常抱歉，你可能已经无法在这里申请到奖学金了。

　　That was the style of the place. They simply didn't care.

　　这就是这样一个地方，他们对一切都毫不在意，They didn't give a shit about their students. There was no counseling, no mentoring, nothing."他们只会对学生放狗屁。这里没有学生咨询服务，没有好的导师，什么都没有。”

　　Chris left Reed before the final set of exams. In the first semester, he had earned As.

　　在期末考试之前，克里斯离开了里德学院。第一学期，他的成绩被评为A等，In second semester, he had Fs.

　　到了第二个学期，他的成绩已经成为了F等。

　　He went back to Bozeman and worked in construction and as a forest services firefighter for a year and a half.

　　他回到了波兹曼，在之后一年半的时间里，他在建筑工地上干过，也做过森林消防员。

　　Then he enrolled at Montana State University.

　　随后他进入了蒙大纳州立大学。

　　"I was taking maths and philosophy courses," he recalled.

　　“我在那里学数学和物理学，”他回忆说，

　　"And then in the winter quarter, I was living thirteen miles out of town, out on Beach Hill Road,“冬天，我住到了比切.希尔，这里离小镇有十三英里多的距离。

　　and the transmission fell out of my car.

　　恰好我汽车的动力装置有故障，

　　My bothers had used it when I was gone that summer.

　　那年夏天我来到这里以前，我的几个弟弟常驾驶这辆车，They were working for the railroad and had driven it on the railway tracks.

　　他们在附近的铁路线上班，经常沿着铁路开车。